Coaching

I am not sure if I have commented on this before but I would like to comment on this topic because I get a lot of feedback from my staff and I get a lot of feedback from my clients.

What is a coach?

Wikipedia has a good history on it.
Etymologically, the English term “coach” is derived from a medium of transport that traces its origins to the Hungarian word kocsi meaning “carriage” that was named after the village where it was first made. [3] The first use of the term coaching to mean an instructor or trainer arose around 1830 in Oxford University slang for a tutor who "carries" a student through an exam.[4] Coaching thus, has been used in language to describe the process used to transport people from where they are, to where they want to be. The first use of the term in relation to sports came in 1831.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaching

I like at the very end how it says as a coach you "transport people from where they are, to where they want to be." I love that because that is exactly what you do. We have to understand that there are many different ways to coach, depends on the age group that you are coaching. Examples; kids, high school, college, adults, and also what field they are in. Sport Specific coaching (football/basketball coach), strength and conditioning, personal training, group exercise and the list can go on. Your approach to each of these in my opinion has to vary depending on the demographic of your group. This is obvious; I just hope it is to you. In my history I have coached freshman summer baseball, I have personal trained people from 12 years old to 55 years old, and I have been a coach at CrossFit Omaha for 3 plus years. I have worked with many different age groups and many different settings. I feel I can adapt to whomever I am around to help bring the best experience to each person. I am really only going to focus on personal training and being a CrossFit coach, because those are the fields I have spent most of my time coaching. I may hit a bit about when I coached baseball but I really want to talk about coaching the general public and elite athletes in our gym.

How I coach.

I take a different approach to each individual and I take a different approach to each class that I teach. This doesn't mean I go easier on different people/classes or go harder, I look at how each of them respond to different motivations. I try to connect on a personal level, not just in the gym but what's going on outside of the gym as well. When you start to understand the person and where they come from, then you can personalize your coaching. If someone responds better to negative reinforcement, you will find that out sooner if you get to know them better. If someone responds to positive reinforcement then you know how to motivate and get people to where they want to be.

"Where they want to be” Let’s talk about that. Let’s say someone comes to you and says I want to lose weight and tone up. Who hasn't heard that before? I'm not really sure what "tone up" means anymore but I get where they are going. Magazines use nice words like that to get people to buy their product. They show a man or woman doing exercises (that they really don't do) with "amazing bodies," right? So when people read these magazines they come to me and say I want to look like that. (This more relates to when I personal trained. It still does happen though.) Now I love the goal, don't get me wrong, whatever motivates you to get you moving and putting things to action I love. As a coach I want you to want more, if that is what gets you in the door and starts pushing you to become better, great. I now want you to start educating yourself in how you want to go about doing that, and then ask me questions about what you are learning. I don't want you to start taking supplement after supplement and eating whole grains and low fat diets. This is where a good coach comes in to play. As a coach you need to become educated in all aspects of fitness (granted I know I have a lot to learn but I am pushing myself to know all that I can). Not just knowing what set and rep scheme to give people to achieve a certain goal but to understand technique, work to rest ratios, recovery, nutrition, and different training modalities is just a start. The tricky part is that some people either don't want to work hard to really achieve their goals, because society has said fitness is quick and easy, or people don't understand what they really need to do to get there.

Let’s start with the "hard work" part. To achieve anything great in this life it takes hard work and dedication. If it is graduating from College, raising a family, getting a raise, becoming healthier, whatever it may be you can half ass it and get half ass results or you can put hard work behind it and dedicate yourself and get the best results you can. This is what most people do not understand, getting great things in life is a result (most the time) of hard work. You have to ask yourself what you want out of life or from your goal that you have set. Do you really want it or just saying you do, do you want to do the work, or are you just saying you do, and are you ready to dedicate yourself, or are you going to dedicate yourself until it becomes hard. Some people are misled to believe that losing weight and to better your health comes with taking a pill, or some people are too lazy to actually do the work. You have to look at fitness as an overall well-being. As a coach you have to be able to get people to understand that, which is one of the hardest things to get across to people. They see commercials with celebrities saying I wear Sketchers shoes and clothing that will help me lose weight and tone up my muscles in the right places. They also hear commercials saying take this pill and you can lose up to 10 pounds in two weeks just by taking this pill, you don't have to change anything in your life. They also have the government telling them bad nutritional information and leading you in the wrong direction. With all of these factors pulling them in all of these directions no wonder why people have a hard time believing you (coach).

Coach, you have to do your research, you have to understand why this is good or this is bad, or how can I get you from here to there safely and most effectively. The client will only follow you for so long saying, "Well he/she tells me to do this so I am going to do it." This lasts until they don't see results or hear of this report that came out saying doing squats is bad for your knees. You need to be able to be 10 steps ahead of your client. Trust me that is really hard to do, especially when your client wants to learn and understand so much. You have to have them understand that working hard and doing it "this way" is going to have them achieve every goal they set forth. This is why we are doing this because this, this, and this, and this is why we are eating this way because of this, this, and this. You start to gain their trust and they will be asking you not telling you what they read in a magazine or heard from someone else.

What I see in the community.

I have been blessed to have great teachers and great mentors to look up to in my coaching, especially two at CrossFit Omaha thanks Ricky and Joe! In no way shape or form am I saying I am the best coach or my ways of doing things is the best, but it works for me. I try to take the best qualities from people I look up to and use them in my own way. My top three requirements to being a great coach; great personality, great with people, and be very knowledgeable about what you are talking about. Let’s talk about each one.

Great Personality, this is unique to each individual and group you are coaching. I believe that when you have a great personality (that's not fake) you can reach people on a whole other level. They start looking at you as someone they can trust and be comfortable with. When those things happen you can really get people to do amazing things.

Great with People, this is a must for obvious reason. If you cannot adapt to your people and cannot relate to them then you will have a tough time getting people to let you in.

Very Knowledgeable, you can only get your clients to achieve as much as you know. If you know very little about nutrition, fitness, and so on how much do you think your client will know? Remember your client looks up to you and expects that you know everything, so when you know little you client does not recognize that until they educate themselves. This only hurts your client.

I have seen and heard a lot of bad coaching out there and I think most coaches have one or two of these qualities but not all three. In my opinion when you have all three you put yourself in a great position to become an amazing coach. What I usually see with people is the first two but not the last one. People can be great motivators and connect with their clients but lack the knowledge. There are a few cases that I see people who have great knowledge but cannot connect with their clients. This makes it hard for clients to really excel and get what they want and achieve it for a life time. In the CrossFit community I see and hear many things. I see coaches with great passion, and see coaches with great intentions, and I see coaches with great knowledge. I also see coaches with elitist type attitudes, I see coaches who treat their clients like meat, and I see coaches that have no idea what they are doing. This frightens me because CrossFit and its philosophy are what I believe in and what I love. I don't want that to define who I am by association. I know everyone is going to do their own thing and coach their own way. All I ask is that you treat people with respect and you coach the best way you know how.

What needs to be changed, in my opinion?

You get yourself into a career or a job or whatever it may be that makes you happy. You have to ask yourself why did you get in to this job, do you love what you do or are you doing what you do because you have to. Either way in my opinion you should strive to be the best. My baseball coach in high school once said to me, "Be the best you can be with whatever situation you are in. If you’re playing baseball strive to be the best baseball player, or if you are a garbage man be the best garbage man you can be." No matter what you are doing why not put forth the effort in being the best you can. You have one life, one body, and one chance to do things right. So why not put forth the effort to be the best. So when it comes to coaching, you become the best you can and you do the research because people come to you for answers, and people come to you and put their life in your hands and they want you to improve it. So what needs to change? Educate yourself, don't think you know everything because you don't and will not know everything. If you research and keep researching and if clients ask you something you don't know tell them you will find out, it is ok to not know something. It's better to tell them you will research something then to tell them something you don't know for sure. Coach people with respect, motivate people with respect and remember they are paying you. They can walk away at any point and tell their friends how much they disliked you. The best clients are people who heard of you through word of mouth and if you are a great coach people will talk about you in a positive way.

Conclusion.

Coaches, if you educate yourself and you get to know your clients and have a good relationship with them, you are going to be very successful. There are people out there that want to be helped and people out there that say they want to be helped. You can't help everyone; all you can go is lead them in the right path. It's their choice to take that path, but they will more likely take that path if you fit all three of those categories I mentioned before. I want to be the best coach in the world, I'm not saying I am but I want to get as close as I can.